Thursday, March 20, 2014

Germany's former Education Minister remains without doctorate

Former German Minister of Education, Annette Schavan, lost the court case today that she filed against the University of Düsseldorf with regards to the revocation of her doctorate in February 2013. She was convinced that the university had not followed correct procedures, and had asked the VG Düsseldorf to reinstate her doctorate for this reason.

The court was very clear in stating that the university had, indeed, followed correct procedures. All of the media in Germany are reporting, here are a few links (Spiegel - Tagesspiegel - University Düsseldorf press release - blogs Erbloggtes with Twitter highlights and poetry and Causa Schavan).

Schavan had communicated prior to the decision that she would continue on to the upper courts if she lost, after the decision she stated that she is examining her options. Many people are suggesting, via Twitter, that she should "do a [Uli] Hoeneß" and accept the court's decision. That would, indeed, be the best. In almost all cases in which a person who has had their doctorate rescinded took the university to court, the university has won. In the one case that I am aware of in which a university lost, they immediately began the procedures again and rescinded the doctorate properly.

Copy, Shake, and Paste

This blog is written by a German professor, Debora Weber-Wulff, who has been researching about plagiarism since 2002. She runs a German-language "Portal Plagiat" that regularly tests plagiarism detection software. She is also a member of the "Computing and Ethics" group of the German computing society, GI, and active in the VroniPlag Wiki.

Impressum

This private blog on scientific misconduct is run by Debora Weber-Wulff in Berlin, Germany. She can be reached at
blogger (dot) 10 (dot) weberwu (at) spamgourmet (dot) com
Many thanks to spamgourmet for this service!
The rest of the Impressum is in German to comply with German publication regulations. Thanks to jurabilis for permission to use!

Just the Statistics, Ma'am

This site uses Site Meter, StatCounter and VG Wort to assess various statistics.